Adam Krueger

Can we stop with the articles telling fans how we should feel about _____? To talk about MN sports is to talk about a fan who is, within sports at the moment, in a fairly unique position. As we all know, not a single major pro sports team has won a championship in this town since 1991. In the last 20 years, the combined playoff records (playoffs, not regular season) for the Twins, Vikings, Wild and Timberwolves is 59-122 (.326). I feel that when the regular fan is in the midst of any given season that isn't a complete wash (ala Twins 2021), the scrutiny is high because the end goal is in mind. Making the playoffs is not the goal for the MN every-fan...its winning a damn championship. So yeah - winning is great, much preferred to losing, but when the fan complains about Baldelli, damn it, they are allowed to feel that way until one of these perennial losers finally breaks through and wins it all...

Yesterday was, when he entered the game, a very low-leverage situation, and he almost blew it; he simply isn't worthy of a MLB bullpen spot at the moment.

To me, the logic of it is completely flawed. Playing him less, giving him more rest, doesn't actually reduce his chances of getting hurt. He gets hurt playing baseball - not necessarily from the wear and tear of playing everyday. Another way of putting it - he gets hurt running into walls, and sliding into bases...its not the strain of playing that gets him hurt, it is his 100% all-out style. So, he'll play 100 games (maybe?) and miss out on playing 25-30 games that he would otherwise have been fine to play...and it will have made no difference. The other scenario is that he continues to rest 35% of the time, and runs into the center field wall in June (or something like that) and is out the rest of the season. Resting him up to that point will have made no difference.

To me, this is the real issue...its not the slow starts, its not the strikeouts in big situations...its the overall lack of baseball discipline. The Twins have a lot of talent, but they aren't so talented that they can afford the occasional loaf. They need everyone to to be playing at the top of their capability, all the time. Does that mean every guy needs to hit .300 all the time? No, by no means - but hey, if you're scuffling at the plate, make sure that when you do get on-base, you are making smart decisions on the basepaths, that you're not potentially costing your team runs because you got caught up in the action. Sano got lucky last night - if that thing doesn't end up working out the way it did, we're all talking about what a lead weight Sano has been all season.

Seems like a potential win-win here; if he sucks and he's done, it didn't cost them much to find out. If he can regain even mid-rotation status, $3.5M is a steal and would have to imagine that they would also agree to that second year mutual option as well. I'd still like to see them get one more arm...counting on Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer to both be effective members of the rotation seems a little idealistic.

Man, that Randy Dobnak extension has got to be one that the FO wishes they had back. I get the logic of why they did it at the time, and thankfully there a team options when the money gets real serious - but since he signed that deal, its been only downhill for him. Cautionary tale for why you don't extend guys who really don't have much of a track record. Hope he can get healthy and find his groove again.

In my recollection, Falvey was brought over to try and duplicate what he had done in Cleveland...which was primarily pitching-oriented. Twins teams in the early part of the 2000s didn't really have trouble on offense - yeah, they were the 'piranhas', but they still got the job done. Pitching, particularly starting pitching depth, has been this team's achilles heel now for 20+ years. A farm system that has been unable to consistently produce quality starting pitching has been a problem for just as long. It was thought that Falvey and Levine were going to be able to change those outcomes, because they had built such a renown pipeline when they were with Cleveland (Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, Cody Allen, Bieber, etc). Maybe its still too early to say given how long the timelines are for SP prospects, but man - it feels like more of the same from before he was brought on-board.

Please stop talking about individual spring training games as if they hold any meaning whatsoever. A lot of times, pitchers are out there to work on something very specific, with no regard to results, same for hitters. There is literally no correlation between Spring training success/failure and regular-season success or failure.

I guess what bothers me the most is that for the past 2-3 seasons, the front-office has taken this 'value approach' and almost none of their 'savvy' acquisitions have worked out. The jury is still out on the Michael Pineda deal, but Morrison was a bust, Addison Reed has been meh, Fernando Rodney was meh, Zach Duke..., Lance Lynn (we barely knew thee), and on and on. It is a series of uninspiring moves and the fact that none of them have really worked out all that favorably makes me question the ability of the front-office to judge potential and talent. Yes they were cheap deals, team-friendly and what not, but in order to make that strategy work for you, some of these value picks have to work out much better than expected. This approach, compounded with some player development question marks makes me wonder, "when are Falvey and Levine going to realize the potential that we thought was there when they were brought on to lead this organizations personnel decisions?" If not soon, why keep them around? I'm not in the camp that says that the Twins need to spend big money and go after the front-line free agents every off-season, but dumpster diving every year isn't the way to go either.

Download attachment: baseball2.jpg I was scanning through box scores this morning, pausing on the box score of the Twins' latest defeat and suddenly I had a particular curiosity. After writing yesterday about how an organizational change in philosophy is needed, I thought, "Besides the Twins current lot of mediocre pitchers, who else is out there that has come through the Minor League system with the club...what have been their results?" As I compiled the list, with the the help of some of my twitter followers (@KirbysLeftEye, @Robert_Short, @trtx84, @thisisbeth, and @SethTweets), another question became rather obvious... what has the Twins farm system really produced in the way of pitching in the last 10-15 years? [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The list of home-grown Twins pitchers, excluding anyone on the current roster, is actually fairly short... shorter than I thought it would be. I didn't differentiate between starters or relievers -- the only requirement was that the pitcher had to have come up (more or less) through the Twins farm system and had to have reached the Majors at some point in his career. Here's the list: *Matt Garza - currently a starting pitcher for the Cubs *Jose Mijares - currently a reliever for the Royals *Kevin Slowey - currently in the Minor League system for the Indians *Jesse Crain - currently a reliever for the White Sox (on the DL) *Pat Neshek - currently in the Minor League system for the Orioles *J.C. Romero - currently a reliever for the Cardinals *LaTroy Hawkins - currently a reliever for the Angels *Kyle Lohse - currently a starting pitcher for the Cardinals *Grant Balfour - currently the closer for the Athletics ** Notable names missing from this list include Johan Santana (a Rule 5 selection who only spent one year in the Twins Minor League system), Matt Guerrier (taken off waivers from the Pirates in 2003), and Carlos Silva (came over in the Eric Milton trade). Here's another list - of pitchers the Twins have drafted in the first or second round since 2000 (source): 2000 - Adam Johnson, Aaron Heilman, J.D. Durbin 2001 - Scott Tyler 2002 - Jesse Crain 2003 - Scott Baker 2004 - Glen Perkins, Kyle Waldrop, Matt Fox, Jay Rainville, Anthony Swarzak 2005 - Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - Carlos Gutierrez, Shooter Hunt 2009 - Kyle Gibson, Matt Bashore, Billy Bullock 2010 - Alex Wimmers 2011 - Hudson Boyd, Madison Boer When you look at that list, one thing should pop out to you and that is this fact: the Twins have not produced even ONE big-league pitcher drafted within the first two rounds of the draft in the past 6 years. The last couple of draft classes excluded (for obvious reasons) the Twins have only drafted ONE pitcher in the first two rounds who even stands a decent chance to be a Major Leaguer and that is Kyle Gibson who is currently on the DL after undergoing Tommy John surgery last year. Since 2006, the Twins have drafted only two pitchers anywhere in the draft who have reached the Majors: Jeff Manship (14th round, 2006) and Anthony Slama (39th round, 2006), both of whom are currently pitching for AAA Rochester. Maybe suggesting that the Twins need an "organizational change in philosophy" is putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps what really is needed is a change in the methods (or the personnel) that this team uses to scout young talent. (Side note: It's interesting when you take a look at the tenures of the current members in the Twins scouting department. Deron Johnson, the Twins current Director of Scouting started in 2007, the same year Bill Smith took over as GM.) To be fair, most other teams in MLB have only had a small handful of pitchers drafted in '06-'11 reach the Majors, but the Twins currently have zero. Another thing to point out here is the hit-or-miss nature of drafting pitchers...it's like drafting a starting quarterback in the NFL. Unless you're looking at a Stephen Strasburg type who is clearly a big-league commodity when drafted, it's difficult to project what a pitcher's potential will be 2-5 years down the line when they finally make it to the Big Leagues. That said, prior to 2006 the Twins did have some success drafting pitchers which bore fruit in the likes of Scott Baker, Glen Perkins, Matt Garza, Jesse Crain and Kevin Slowey - all of whom had at least a good season or two with the Major League club. Perkins is currently the best reliever in the Twins bullpen and Matt Garza has had some very good numbers for the Cubs over the last two seasons and tossed a no-hitter in 2010 with the Rays. They've shown the ability to identify good talent, at least at some point in the past, but that ability appears to have waned...or flat out disappeared. I'd love to hear what you readers think - also, let me know if I left anyone out of the first list above. Click here to view the article

After a pretty good weekend which saw the hometown club win 3 out of 4 against divisional rival Kansas City, the Twins are now 33-45 and 8.5 games behind the division-leading Chicago White Sox. The Twins' record still doesn't look pretty, but I'm here to tell you that it's not as bad as it looks. Since May 1st, the Twins have gone 27-29 thanks in large part to an offensive that has been out-producing some pretty horrible starting pitching. Aside from Joe Mauer, the offensive production has come from a couple of unexpected performers in the likes of Josh "Hammer" Willingham and Trevor "Plouffda" Plouffe who both seem to have made it their mission to lead the team in homeruns this year. In yesterday's game against KC, both Willingham and Plouffe went deep and Trevor managed to have the upper hand at the end of the day, hitting two bombs in a 10-8 Twins' win. On the scorecard, Plouffe leads the team in HRs with 18 and Willingham is one back at 17 (Morneau is a distant 3rd place with 10 homeruns so far this season). In only 59 games so far this season, Plouffe has managed to rack up 31 RBI and 35 Runs and has asserted himself in the middle of what has become a very formidable lineup for the Twins. The 3, 4, 5, and 6 hitters for the Twins are Mauer (.324/.414/.445) and then some combination of Willingham, Morneau, Plouffe and Doumit, all of whom bring some thunder (or at least the potential for it) to the plate with them. Getting back to the pitching; after owning an MLB-worst 5.64 team ERA in April, the staff as a whole has been slowly improving. In May the team ERA dropped to 4.96 and in June it dropped again to a mildly respectable 4.33 mark. Twins' starters have improved quite a bit as well. After posting a miserable 6.75 ERA in April, they posted a 5.74 mark in May and improved again in June with a 5.09 ERA collectively. A 5.00+ ERA is still pretty brutal, but at least they are moving in the right direction. It's possible that the Twins could get Carl Pavano back towards the middle or end of this month and I have a feeling that Nick Blackburn will begin to figure out his issues and start to pitch better as well. It would be hard to get much worse than his current 7.74 ERA... With 4 teams ahead of them in the standings, it's impossible HIGHLY unlikely that the Twins will be contending for anything come September, but I think that over their past 50+ games, the Twins have shown that they are at least capable of competing on a night-in, night-out basis. It's been good to see some of the youngsters like Plouffe, Scott Diamond, Cole DeVries and Ben Revere step up. The result has been much more watchable than last year's 99-loss team and gives me a little more hope going forward. The only thing I hope this recent success doesn't lead to is hesitation on the part of the front-office to make the trades they need to make. Despite being "only" 8.5 games back in the standings, the Twins still need to be sellers and with players like Span, Willingham, and Liriano performing well of late, the team has some decent trade-bait to dangle out there.

After a pretty good weekend which saw the hometown club win 3 out of 4 against divisional rival Kansas City, the Twins are now 33-45 and 8.5 games behind the division-leading Chicago White Sox. The Twins' record still doesn't look pretty, but I'm here to tell you that it's not as bad as it looks. Since May 1st, the Twins have gone 27-29 thanks in large part to an offensive that has been out-producing some pretty horrible starting pitching. Aside from Joe Mauer, the offensive production has come from a couple of unexpected performers in the likes of Josh "Hammer" Willingham and Trevor "Plouffda" Plouffe who both seem to have made it their mission to lead the team in homeruns this year. In yesterday's game against KC, both Willingham and Plouffe went deep and Trevor managed to have the upper hand at the end of the day, hitting two bombs in a 10-8 Twins' win. On the scorecard, Plouffe leads the team in HRs with 18 and Willingham is one back at 17 (Morneau is a distant 3rd place with 10 homeruns so far this season). In only 59 games so far this season, Plouffe has managed to rack up 31 RBI and 35 Runs and has asserted himself in the middle of what has become a very formidable lineup for the Twins. The 3, 4, 5, and 6 hitters for the Twins are Mauer (.324/.414/.445) and then some combination of Willingham, Morneau, Plouffe and Doumit, all of whom bring some thunder (or at least the potential for it) to the plate with them. Getting back to the pitching; after owning an MLB-worst 5.64 team ERA in April, the staff as a whole has been slowly improving. In May the team ERA dropped to 4.96 and in June it dropped again to a mildly respectable 4.33 mark. Twins' starters have improved quite a bit as well. After posting a miserable 6.75 ERA in April, they posted a 5.74 mark in May and improved again in June with a 5.09 ERA collectively. A 5.00+ ERA is still pretty brutal, but at least they are moving in the right direction. It's possible that the Twins could get Carl Pavano back towards the middle or end of this month and I have a feeling that Nick Blackburn will begin to figure out his issues and start to pitch better as well. It would be hard to get much worse than his current 7.74 ERA... With 4 teams ahead of them in the standings, it's impossible HIGHLY unlikely that the Twins will be contending for anything come September, but I think that over their past 50+ games, the Twins have shown that they are at least capable of competing on a night-in, night-out basis. It's been good to see some of the youngsters like Plouffe, Scott Diamond, Cole DeVries and Ben Revere step up. The result has been much more watchable than last year's 99-loss team and gives me a little more hope going forward. The only thing I hope this recent success doesn't lead to is hesitation on the part of the front-office to make the trades they need to make. Despite being "only" 8.5 games back in the standings, the Twins still need to be sellers and with players like Span, Willingham, and Liriano performing well of late, the team has some decent trade-bait to dangle out there.

I didn't see a distance (and they didn't announce it), but dead center was 400ft. and his HR hit high off one of the scoreboards out there. If I had to guess, I would say 420-440ft.?

I had the pleasure, this Memorial Day, to take in a Kane County Cougars game here in the Chicagoland area and was pleasantly surprised to find that their opponent today was the Twins' Single-A affiliate Beloit Snappers of the Midwest League. I had nice seats, 3 rows from the field on the 3rd base side and witnessed a donnybrook of a game; a 41-hit, 24-run affair that featured 2 homeruns, 4 errors and a total of 11 different pitchers. It was a hot one at Fifth-Third Bank Stadium today (95 degrees) but that didn't scare away the fans which included many families out there enjoying some Minor League Baseball. The wind was blowing straight out and the players came to the park with their good bats. It was 5-4 Snappers by end of the 3rd inning and the two teams played see-saw until the bottom of the 9th when Cougar Orlando Calixte hit a 2-run HR to left field which tied the game up at 9 a piece. The two bullpens then pitched a couple of scoreless innings each before the Snappers blew it wide open in the top of the 12th, plating 6 runs, capped off by a monstrous center-field moonshot off the bat of Miguel Sano, his 12th of the season. I'm telling you, this homerun hit off the top of the scoreboards in center, he absolutely mauled it. One cool sidebar from the game: a row in front of us and a few seats down was a kid sitting with his dad. He was wearing a Yankees hat, but as the game went on I noticed that he was rooting for the Snappers. Eventually he and I realized that we were both cheering for the road-team and I for the rest of the game I had a cheering buddy. Every time the Snappers would do something good, he would look over and give me a thumbs-up. It was cute. When I left I gave him a high-five and a "Go Twins". Getting back to Sano, he was pretty unimpressive for most of the game. Up until his HR in the 12th he was 0-for-6 and committed an error at 3rd. His body type reminds me of Hanley Ramirez. He has a big athletic figure, but he also has speed evidenced in the game by a close play at 1st when he grounded to the shortstop. I knew that he had been slumping of late at the plate so I didn't have a whole lot of expectations but was very happy to see him hit a homerun. A couple of other players that caught my eye were Eddie Rosario (2B) who had 5RBI on 2 hits and Adam Pettersen (SS) who went 3-for-7 in the game with a triple, 3 runs, an RBI and a nice double-play to end the game. He has good energy and though he is small, he has a quick bat and plays a decent shortstop. In looking at his numbers on Baseball-Reference he doesn't have a very impressive resume and lacks any real power, but he's only 23 years old and has good energy. I know that last remark isn't all that informative but hey, I only saw one game. Pitching-wise there was nothing all that impressive. Snappers starter Matt Summers pitched pretty well (5IP, 4R, 1ER, 7H, 8K, 1BB) but didn't look overpowering or as dominating as those 8Ks would suggest. His fastball looked to be topping out at about 92mph. After having himself a nice season in Rookie ball last year, he has failed to translate that success into the Single-A level, carrying a 4.21 ERA into the game with a paltry 5.1 K/9 ratio. All in all, it was a great time. If you haven't had a chance to see some Minor League baseball, I highly recommend it. It's very family-friendly stuff and it's cool to see players like Sano and Rosario who might make it to the Bigs one day. Kinda like getting a glimpse of the future...or at least the potential that the future may hold.

I had the pleasure, this Memorial Day, to take in a Kane County Cougars game here in the Chicagoland area and was pleasantly surprised to find that their opponent today was the Twins' Single-A affiliate Beloit Snappers of the Midwest League. I had nice seats, 3 rows from the field on the 3rd base side and witnessed a donnybrook of a game; a 41-hit, 24-run affair that featured 2 homeruns, 4 errors and a total of 11 different pitchers. It was a hot one at Fifth-Third Bank Stadium today (95 degrees) but that didn't scare away the fans which included many families out there enjoying some Minor League Baseball. The wind was blowing straight out and the players came to the park with their good bats. It was 5-4 Snappers by end of the 3rd inning and the two teams played see-saw until the bottom of the 9th when Cougar Orlando Calixte hit a 2-run HR to left field which tied the game up at 9 a piece. The two bullpens then pitched a couple of scoreless innings each before the Snappers blew it wide open in the top of the 12th, plating 6 runs, capped off by a monstrous center-field moonshot off the bat of Miguel Sano, his 12th of the season. I'm telling you, this homerun hit off the top of the scoreboards in center, he absolutely mauled it. One cool sidebar from the game: a row in front of us and a few seats down was a kid sitting with his dad. He was wearing a Yankees hat, but as the game went on I noticed that he was rooting for the Snappers. Eventually he and I realized that we were both cheering for the road-team and I for the rest of the game I had a cheering buddy. Every time the Snappers would do something good, he would look over and give me a thumbs-up. It was cute. When I left I gave him a high-five and a "Go Twins". Getting back to Sano, he was pretty unimpressive for most of the game. Up until his HR in the 12th he was 0-for-6 and committed an error at 3rd. His body type reminds me of Hanley Ramirez. He has a big athletic figure, but he also has speed evidenced in the game by a close play at 1st when he grounded to the shortstop. I knew that he had been slumping of late at the plate so I didn't have a whole lot of expectations but was very happy to see him hit a homerun. A couple of other players that caught my eye were Eddie Rosario (2B) who had 5RBI on 2 hits and Adam Pettersen (SS) who went 3-for-7 in the game with a triple, 3 runs, an RBI and a nice double-play to end the game. He has good energy and though he is small, he has a quick bat and plays a decent shortstop. In looking at his numbers on Baseball-Reference he doesn't have a very impressive resume and lacks any real power, but he's only 23 years old and has good energy. I know that last remark isn't all that informative but hey, I only saw one game. Pitching-wise there was nothing all that impressive. Snappers starter Matt Summers pitched pretty well (5IP, 4R, 1ER, 7H, 8K, 1BB) but didn't look overpowering or as dominating as those 8Ks would suggest. His fastball looked to be topping out at about 92mph. After having himself a nice season in Rookie ball last year, he has failed to translate that success into the Single-A level, carrying a 4.21 ERA into the game with a paltry 5.1 K/9 ratio. All in all, it was a great time. If you haven't had a chance to see some Minor League baseball, I highly recommend it. It's very family-friendly stuff and it's cool to see players like Sano and Rosario who might make it to the Bigs one day. Kinda like getting a glimpse of the future...or at least the potential that the future may hold.